Headmaster fired after stealing electricity to mine cryptocurrency

The headmaster of a Chinese high school was fired after the school of mine cryptocurrency, local media reported.

Lei Hua deployed eight ethereum mining machines in the school for a year, racking up an electricity bill of 14,700 yuan ($ 3140), according to an online publication by a state-owned radio station in Hunan, the central Chinese provinces where the school is located. Last month She was dismissed from his post after the power was detected, the report said.

Friday were not answered. High school were also not successful.

Cryptocurrency mining is the process whereby new coins are being offered as a reward for building and maintaining the public ledger of every transaction that has taken place for cryptocurrencies, like bitcoin and ethereum. Such activity, requiring high end computing power, is usually undertaken by specialized computing chips that consume large amounts of power.

She started mining at home in June 2017 and paid about 10,000 yuan ($ 2132) to buy her first mining machine, which consumed nearly 21 kilowatt-hours of electricity per day, according to the report. In order to save money on his power bill, you will soon be relocating the computer to the school.

A report on the report of the unusually high-level electricity consumption to you.

In January She's deputy headmaster also started mining ethereum using the school's power supply Watchdog has declared the cryptocurrency earnings of both teachers, but the amount was not specified.

China has played a dominant role in cryptocurrency mining and is home to some of the world's biggest creators of hardware mining, such as Beijing-based Bitmain, which is planning an initial public offering in Hong Kong. But since the start of this year, Chinese authorities have moved to curb mining operations amid an overall crackdown on cryptocurrency trading to avoid potential financial chaos.

In the month of April, the police arrested six individuals in northern Tianjin for mining electricity, bitcoin mining machines, state news agency Xinhua reported at the time.

Headmaster Her side job may not have been that lucrative after all. Amid wider bearish sentiment in cryptocurrencies, ethereum prices have plunged over 70 per cent from their peak in February, currently trading at around US $ 210, according to date from CoinMarketCap.